


Worthy of Love

by TracingHerWay



Category: The Handmaid's Tale (TV), The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
Genre: Angst, F/M, Heavy Angst, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-30
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-31 09:09:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19422895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TracingHerWay/pseuds/TracingHerWay
Summary: A Nick/June oneshot set after the events of 3x06. My attempt to put things right ... in my own angst-filled way.





	Worthy of Love

**Author's Note:**

> I just needed to get this out of my system after 3x06.
> 
> It was either this or a pile of fluff to make me feel better, but something had to be done.

* * *

**Three months after Washington D.C.**

Déjà vu. He’s done this before, creeping through Lawrence’s house in the dead of night. It's dangerous, but worth it.

He knocks at her door. Tries the handle. It’s locked. She must be asleep. Fuck.

“June.”

For a few seconds, he hears nothing, and then footsteps, quickly. The lock turning.

She opens the door. She’s in her nightdress, but it doesn’t look like he’s woken her up; she’s alert. Her expression at seeing him is … different. Not what he was expecting. She doesn't smile.

“I thought you were in Chicago.”

“I was. I’m on leave. I wanted to see you.”

She pulls the door fully open and then shuts it behind him as he walks through.

He moves towards her as soon as it’s closed, pulling her to him.

“How are you?” he whispers, cupping her face in his hands.

A few seconds pass as he trails kisses along her jawline. He can’t help himself. He’s missed her so much. Her smell, her softness, the taste of her skin.

She doesn’t respond. Turns her head. So he stops.

“What’s wrong?”

He looks up and he’s taken aback when he sees tears in her eyes. There’s anger there, somewhere, and a distance growing. Coldness. As if she’s not even in the room. He knows that look.

He steels himself, thinking back to the last time he was here. Before he left. She was cold with him then, too.

_“What are you good for?”_

There’s clearly something she wants to say. He wishes she would, for once, just be happy to see him. And for that to be enough. He wishes she would leave the rest of the world where it was for a few hours, like they used to in those secret nights at the Waterfords, and at the Globe. He knows that’s selfish, but all he wants is to be with her. To forget the horrors of the last months and bury himself in her.

But he won’t press it, not if she doesn’t want to. Something’s not right.

“What did you do? In Gilead? Before I met you?”

Out of all the things she could have said, he wasn’t expecting that.

“I was a driver. For years. You know that.”

“Before that?”

His brow furrows slightly.

“In the Crusade?” she prompts.

He holds her glare for a second, trying to read her. Now it’s his turn to pull away. He drops his hands from her. Exhales slowly, shakes his head.

“What?”

“I want to know. I want to hear it from you.”

“What’s this about?”

“The Swiss. After we last saw each other. They told me you couldn’t be trusted.”

He stares at her, incredulously, as he starts to feel the foundations of everything they’ve built between them in the last two years fall away.

”And Serena, she-“

“ _Serena_?!” he scoffs under his breath. “What did Serena tell you?”

She presses her lips together, hardening. There’s a beat. He thinks he sees a flicker of doubt cross her face, but maybe it’s wishful thinking. “She said you were a soldier. Before. That you served Gilead.”

His face sinks.

“And you believed her? Is that what you think? You think I serve Gilead?”

“The Swiss said I didn’t know who you were. How am I supposed to know, Nick? You never told me anything.”

 _You should know I love you. You should know I hate this place as much as you do_ , he thinks.

But he does owe her an explanation. It’s something he’d thought about for a long time; what he would say. When she first started coming to him, above the garage, he’d been expecting this question to come up. It never had.

He thought they were past it now.

“They tricked me. I was unemployed. Pryce, he was my fucking careers advisor. He recruited me.”

She frowns.

“He knew I needed a job, to support my dad and my brother. I was nothing. He made it sound like something better. The Sons of Jacob. So I started going to the meetings. I thought it was bullshit. I had no idea what it would turn into. I went because I needed a job.”

She looks at him, and he can see she needs more than that. It’s not enough. Of course it isn’t.

“Yes, I was a soldier. Like every other fucking idiot who got involved with them before they realised what was happening. They made me a soldier. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. It was either that or be killed.”

“A lot of people would rather have died than fight for this shit,” she spits angrily.

He stops at that. The rage that was starting to spill out dissipates back inside him, replaced by something else. He blinks at her, stung, and looks down.

“Is that what you wish? That I would have died?” he says, quietly.

To his relief, she at least looks shocked at that. Shocked at herself, maybe, for saying what she’d just said in the moment. Regret. She sits down on the bed.

“I didn’t have anything to live for. By that point, my father was dead. My brother was gone. I had nothing. I hated the whole fucking world.”

“And now?”

“Now I have something to fight for.”

She glances up at that, and he sees a glimmer of the June he has missed. Something like hope. He holds her gaze.

“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing for the last two years, June? You think that I’m one of them? I tried to get you out. Twice. I fucking held Waterford at gunpoint for you. For you and Holly.” She frowns, confused, at that… of course, she didn’t know. How would she? But there’s no time to get into that, more pressing matters at hand.

He continues. “Youthink I don’t love you? That I used you?”

“No, I don’t think that,” she whispers.

She opens her mouth to say more, but no words come.

“It’s all for you, June. You and Holly,” he says, his voice breaking. “I thought you trusted me.”

“But what if we’d never met, Nick? What would you be doing then?”

“I was numb to it. I was just trying to survive.”

There’s silence between them. It stretches out. He runs his hand over his face, lost.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for not wanting to die. I’m trying to put it right. But it’s not so easy.”

He takes one step towards her. Her face is wet with tears. She looks pained, confused. He hates that he has made her feel this way. It’s not meant to be like this, with them. He’s meant to take her pain away.

“I love you.”

He longs for her to say it back, despite everything. She doesn’t. Just like old times.

Maybe she’s right. Maybe he is a monster. He’s spent enough time thinking it himself over the years. But she had made him start to believe that he was worthy of love, after all.

Maybe he was wrong about that too.

All he knows is that this hurts too much. And he needs to get out.

“Goodbye, June.”

“Nick, wait—“

He doesn’t wait. Not like the last time he was here. He wants to be gone. He’s said his piece, for once. There’s nothing else to say. If she doesn’t believe him, trust him, after everything they’ve gone through, so be it.

 _Fuck her_.

He doesn’t mean that.

***

He gets back to the car and that’s when he lets the emotion come. He hasn’t cried for a long time... not since he was alone above his garage after they drowned Eden, after he walked away from June in the kitchen. But right now, there’s just too much to process and he’s overwhelmed. Hurt that she doubted him after all this time, that she believed them. Anger at Gilead, at being lied to, trapped. Disgust with himself at the things he’s done, not just before but since then too. The things he’s seen at the front. He can’t explain it. He can’t justify it. He was a fool to think he could.

So, he lets the tears come.

What he doesn’t see is that she followed him out of the house. She’s a couple of minutes behind him; she had to pull on some extra clothes before she could go outside. She wanted to hold him, to apologise, like last time, but she’s too late. She walks up, sees the car, and him sat inside; she stops dead in the garden when she realises he’s crying. She steps under cover of a tree, and watches him. She sees his body heaving, sees his face, reflected in the wing mirror, contorted. Cheeks shining wet in the moonlight. He bangs his fist on the steering wheel, once, twice, three times, before his head falls into his hands.

In that moment, she truly hates herself.

Before she can snap out of it, before she can go to him, he starts the ignition.

And then, just like that, he’s gone.

* * *

**Chicago, three weeks later**

He’s back at the front. His tent is pretty basic, what could you expect from a warzone, but it’s comfortable. He is a Commander now after all.

He’s going through documents. Intelligence. Each bit of paper is a balance. He has to weigh up the information, the risk versus the cost. While he’s doing as much as he can, there’s only so much he can avoid without them starting to suspect. But, more often than not, if it’s something he knows Mayday can use, he takes the risk.

Lately, he’s been thinking he’d be better off dead anyway.

He opens the next package. The envelope is barely closed, like it’s been opened and sealed over again.

 _Probably intercepted by an Eye,_ he thinks.

It’s from Lawrence. More strategies, policies.

But something falls out from the stack of paper: a small, folded note.

When he opens it, his breathe hitches.

—

_I’m so sorry._

_I love you. I’ll always love you._

_I trust you with my life._

_Please be safe._

—

It’s not signed, it’s not addressed to him, but he knows it’s from her.

He lets out the breath he’s been holding. Since he last saw her, it feels like. He sits there, eyes shut, taking it in. Shaky, relief sweeping over him.

He folds it back in half. He debates keeping it, but it’s too dangerous. He won’t forget the words anyway.

Stepping outside, he holds it up to his lighter. It goes up in seconds, glowing ash floating away in the air. 

He lights a cigarette and stands there, letting it all sink in for a few minutes; feeling his purpose coming back to him. His resolve strengthening. It feels good. Like she’s there with him.

As he breathes out another puff of smoke, one of his officers, comes round the corner. Stands to attention.

“Commander Blaine, sir? The men are awaiting your orders.”

In the end, Canada had refused to return Holly to Gilead _(Thank God)_ and tensions had increased on the border. The fighting is more frequent.

There’s meant to be an attack by his men tonight. But the resistance knows, they’re ready, he’s made sure of that. Just waiting for his signal.

He’d planned to call the whole thing off. It felt reckless; too obvious. But if it went to plan, it could really make a difference.

Risk versus cost.

_I love you too, June._

Enough now. Time to put this right.

Time to burn this motherfucker down.

“I’m on my way.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it. This is my first fic in this fandom and my first fic, in general, in years. So any feedback would be really appreciated. It's probably awful, sorry.
> 
> I will go down with this ship. #JusticeForNickBlaine


End file.
